


Safety Above All Other Considerations

by yetanotherramblingfangirl



Category: The Worst Witch (TV 2017), The Worst Witch - All Media Types
Genre: Episode 1.12 missing scene, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-08-20
Updated: 2018-08-20
Packaged: 2019-06-30 00:14:35
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,303
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15740184
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/yetanotherramblingfangirl/pseuds/yetanotherramblingfangirl
Summary: In an attempt to ensure Mildred's safety in the wake of Agatha's takeover, Hecate finds herself turning to Maud Spellbody for assistance.





	Safety Above All Other Considerations

**Author's Note:**

> I saw a gif set going around tumblr of the scene at the gate in 1.12 and I spent about two months thinking about how that had to have been planned in advance. This is what I came up with. Not that this is important, but this is the first story I've actually finished in 5 years, so please excuse me for being reeeeeeeaaaaaaalllllllly rusty. Thanks for reading and please enjoy!

Mildred was missing. Under normal circumstances, Hecate Hardbroom would have been furious. But these were hardly normal circumstances. Agatha had returned, Ada was trapped in a painting, and Hecate was fairly certain she was in the beginning stages of a panic attack. The term was not supposed to end on this particular type of note. She was not supposed to be worrying about the destruction of everything and everyone she cared about. She was supposed to be preparing to send the oldest girls off to bright futures and worrying about the decline of the Craft signaled by the newest group of incoming students. She wasn’t supposed to be concerned that someone was going to harm one of her students.

But, much to Hecate’s constant chagrin, life had a funny way of never turning out the way one expected, didn’t it?

Her primary concern at the moment was ensuring that Mildred Hubble was safe. She needed to protect the girl. And the best way to do that was to send her away. The problem was she was already gone. And Hecate could not locate her. Anywhere.

She couldn’t remember the last time she’d been so frightened for a student. She didn’t care for the sensation.

But now was not the time to fixate on her own feelings on the matter. Now was the time to locate Mildred. And to do that, she had only one place to turn: Maud Spellbody.

If anyone knew Mildred’s whereabouts, it would certainly be the girl’s best friend. She cast a quick location spell, relieved to find that Maud was safely tucked away in her room. With a subtle twist of the wrist, Hecate transferred outside the girl’s door.

She hesitated for a moment, attempting to rearrange her features into a blank mask before facing her pupil. It wouldn’t do to let others see her panic. Because panic was most assuredly what she felt. Panic, worry, anger, and crushing guilt. She had failed to protect her students, her friends, and her home. She had failed on a colossal scale and it hurt.

She couldn’t put it off any longer, not if she wanted to deal with the situation in a timely fashion. Taking a deep breath, she knocked sharply on the door. She didn’t wait for a response before entering and closing the door behind her with a soft click. It made her uncomfortable to be in a closed room alone with a student, but it wouldn’t do to be overheard.

Caught up though she was in her own thoughts, she didn’t miss the way Maud jumped at her sudden appearance within her private space. The poor girl nearly tumbled from where she sat cross-legged on her bed. Hecate was impressed with the girl’s quick recovery. She watched Maud square her shoulders and adjust her glasses before offering an even “Good afternoon, Miss Hardbroom.”

“I need you to tell me where Mildred Hubble is right now.” Hecate’s tone was curt, but she could not quell the slight tremble that crept in. She silently cursed her inability to maintain her full composure, closing her eyes for a few seconds in an effort to regain some semblance of calm.

“Millie is in her room, Miss Hardbroom.”

The lie was delivered well, almost as if Maud truly believed it. As if she’d rehearsed it. Hecate was fairly certain she had. But she did not have time for this. At the best of times she didn’t have the patience. But today, when she was all raw concern and blind panic, when she had not yet had time to formulate a plan beyond “Get Mildred out”, when she knew that a moment wasted was a moment closer to Agatha hurting Mildred, she truly couldn’t tolerate it. She clenched her teeth and ground out a frustrated, “Do not lie to me.”

Maud had the good sense to look embarrassed at being caught out so quickly. She shifted uncomfortably under her teacher’s gaze. “Well,” she said, drawing the word out in an obvious attempt to buy herself time to come up with a new story. “Millie’s gone to...to the pond! She’s liked it there ever since her frog period.”

Hecate closed her eyes and forced herself to take one long, slow breath. She needed this information now, but clearly Maud was a trustworthy and loyal friend. It was admirable, protecting one’s friends. Opening her eyes and releasing the breath she only now realized she’d been holding, she crossed her arms tightly across her chest. Her fingers drummed against her biceps. If she was going to protect Mildred, she was going to need to appeal to Maud’s protectiveness in order to do so.

The idea made her slightly queasy. She would not - could not - be so needlessly cruel as to exploit the friendship of two girls. How would she be able to live with herself? Quite easily in the long term as Mildred’s safety was certainly more important than any other consideration, most certainly more important than her own feelings or discomfort. She would just need to be honest; and while she considered herself to be forthright when it came to her students, this simply felt wrong. But she couldn’t let that stop her from doing what needed to be done.

Hecate dropped her arms to her side and forced herself further into the room. She pulled the hard wooden chair from its spot at Maud’s small desk to sit beside the girl’s bed. The gentle scrape of the chair legs against the stone floor as she sat helped to ground her. “I need to know the last place and time you saw Mildred,” she said slowly, hands clenching uncomfortably in her lap. “I need to make sure Agatha doesn’t…”

The sentence faded to awkward, uncomfortable nothingness. She couldn’t do this. She couldn’t burden a child with this. She needed to focus on the task at hand, something that was becoming harder to do when faced with Maud’s open-mouthed horror.

“You think Agatha would really hurt Mildred?” she squeaked, hands nervously fidgeting with the tufts on a decorative pillow.

“Yes, at the first opportunity.” Her voice was steady, her conviction clear in that simple statement. Agatha cared nothing for anyone but herself and it had nearly destroyed the school once before. She had tried to harm Mildred the last time she’d attempted a takeover. Hecate still shuddered when she thought of all the ways in which that broomstick display could have gone. Agatha was nothing if not determined, but Hecate Hardbroom was as well. And she was determined to save her most trouble-prone student. “I need to know where Mildred is because I cannot protect her if I do not know her location.”

Maud nodded a moment, her expression taking on its own grim determination. To see a child look so serious reminded Hecate of herself as a child, a thought she found altogether horrifying. She watched as Maud took a deep breath and looked her squarely in the eye before saying, “She left yesterday afternoon. She was convinced that Agatha had already switched places with Miss Cackle and she was going to check on her. I think she must have lost her broom if she’s not back yet.”

Hecate shifted uncomfortably in her seat. Mildred had been gone since the previous afternoon and she hadn’t noticed. She wished there was an acceptable excuse for such a slip, but there was not. There was absolutely no excuse aside from incompetence. She leaned forward slightly with her hands tightly gripping her knees. She needed to focus but her thoughts were fixated on her failure, looping through a long list of transgressions she knew Ada would try to convince her she hadn’t committed. But Ada was not here. Instead Hecate was deeply uncomfortable with everything about her current situation and was too busy indulging her anxiety in front of a frightened child to be of any use to anyone.

“Are you alright, Miss Hardbroom?” Maud asked quietly, her eyebrows drawn inward in a mixture of confusion and concern.

Hecate forced herself to lean back, bringing her spine back into perfect ramrod alignment. Now was not the time or place for this behavior. Later, when she had seen to the safety of the girls, she could fall apart. But she would not place the burden of her own emotions on a child any longer. It was completely inappropriate and unfair. So she ignored the question and instead asked her own. “You are aware of the rules regarding unauthorized absence from the grounds, are you not?”

“Of course. It’s grounds for automatic expulsion. But-”

Hecate’s gaze softened as she watched Maud realize exactly what she was saying. 

“But Mildred was trying to do a good thing, Miss Hardbroom!”

“I know.”

Maud’s anger was sudden, if not exactly unexpected. Before she could blink, the girl was throwing her pillow against her headboard and clamoring to a standing position. Maud glared at Hecate as she stepped to stand before her. “You’re going to punish Mildred for-”

“It is not a punishment. It is the only way to ensure her safety,” Hecate said, her voice level and far gentler than she’d intended. She stared into Maud’s eyes and hoped the girl would see her sincerity. “Mildred is safest if she isn’t here.”

“You’ve been looking for an excuse to get rid of her all term! And now you’re just taking advantage!”

Hecate’s brow crinkled and her cheeks flushed pink with shame. She had not handled herself well when it came to Mildred Hubble, a fact of which she was well aware. There was just something about the girl that simultaneously irritated and impressed her. That combination had never resulted in favorable behavior from Hecate; and the angry reminder by a first year student of her own shortcomings snapped something within Hecate. She could feel her breath stutter to a stop in her chest. She pressed her clenched fists against her knees, tension radiating from her in anxious waves as she forced herself to breathe in and out slowly. Time stretched interminably before Hecate finally forced out a quiet confession. “I came to you for your assistance with ensuring Mildred’s safety, Maud, not to be berated for my failings.”

This was enough to deflate Maud’s angry reaction. The girl plopped down on the edge of her bed with a strangled sigh. “I don-”

“I think you fail to grasp the seriousness of the situation and I cannot help but feel partially responsible. I have done my best to minimize--” Hecate’s voice caught momentarily, unable to finish that particular thought. She cleared her throat before continuing. “Mildred Hubble has twice foiled Agatha’s bids for control over this school. And while that might make you think that she is invincible, she is not. She is a vulnerable child.”

Hecate paused for a moment. She forced herself to look Maud directly in the eye, watching to see if her words were sinking in. “I assure you I take no pleasure in this, despite what you might think of me. My primary concern at this moment is the safety of all the girls in my care. Including Mildred Hubble.”

Maud nodded mutely, eyes wide and wet. It was clear that Hecate’s message was beginning to sink in. She continued to stare at her teacher in shocked silence.

Feeling herself starting to squirm under her student’s frightened gaze, Hecate looked toward the window. “I will need your help.”

Maud reached for the pillow she’d thrown earlier, leaning down to pick it up from where it had bounced to the floor. She clutched it to her chest once more. Taking a deep breath, the girl nodded. “What do you need me to do?”

“I need you to wait at Walker’s Gate for Mildred to return. When she does return, I need you to call for me.”

Maud’s brow crinkled again with confusion. “But won’t that look like I’m turning her in?”

“It will.”

“But why do you need me to do that?”

Hecate readjusted in her seat, wishing to buy herself time. She had sworn not to exploit a child’s friendship, but it was unavoidable. “I need it to look as if Mildred is being punished. Agatha will not act further if Mildred is removed from the school. Even she would not violate that part of the Witches’ Code.”

“But Mildred will hate me!”

Maud’s obvious distress caused Hecate’s stomach to twist painfully with guilt. Despite once having told Maud to make better friends, she would not interfere in a child’s friendships. Her own childhood experiences of such meddling had gone a long way toward ensuring she avoid such activity. But here it was inevitable. She couldn’t bring herself to voice the thought that at least Mildred would be alive to hate her. Instead, she pushed that thought into the deepest, darkest corner of her mind. “When Miss Cackle is restored to her position and all is put right Mildred will see that you did this for her safety. And she will understand that you were being a good friend.”

“Will she?”

Hecate nodded. “She will.”

Maud nodded, her expression one of grim determination. “Then I suppose I should get in position now.”

Hecate watched as Maud carefully set her pillow back atop the others before slipping on her shoes and rising from her seat at the edge of her bed. The girl was nearly to the door when Hecate quietly said, “You’re doing the right thing, Maud.”

The girl paused to look back at her for a moment. “I know. But that doesn’t make me feel better about it.”

Hecate nodded curtly before transferring away, the soft click of the door latching the last thing she heard before Maud’s sing-song call of “Miss Hardbroom!” drew her to the gate.


End file.
